Im going to release some of my private java projects as opensource. I want everyone to be free do whatever he wants with the code. So i will be using ASL or BSD licence.Which steps are neccessary to apply the licence to my project ?

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Kevin BrownJun 16 at 23:45

5 Answers
5

You simply declare, that all files in the source distribution are released under the license foo. There are some standards to it, so a file called LICENSE in the root directory often contains the license. Some people add a standard-header to every source-file, containing a hint to the license, but that's too much work for me. But these are only conventions, you only have to declare it clearly, that the license XY applies to this project.

Most important for you I think, will be a notice, that you don't cover any damages your software does and everyone is using at at it's own risk. Most OS-licences include such a notice.

All that I said is from a programmer without lawyer-skills, so I don't guarantee that it's holding in court. Additionally I'm german, and we have a little different rules to copyright than us-americans.

If you use Google Code, you can select the license in the "Administration" tab. And you can (and must?) have a copy of the license in the source code and your binary distribution (for ex: as a part of the zip file).

You can display in the installer too with an "I Agree" checkbox :), that is if you've an installer for your application.

Ever thought of releasing it under a Creative Commons License?
You can easily describe what it is allowed and what not. Everybody understands this license and they tell you on their website what you have to do, to use this license.

Edit: There you can find "understandable" versions of BSD, GPL and LGPL, too.